Sink or Swim
by Candycornlol
Summary: Lucilile Evans is a normal girl from District 11. Until she finds out that her life is in danger. Then, she has to face the toughest choice she's ever made. Sink...or swim.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One 

Part One: The Decision

"Catch this one!" my best friend, Kyan says, tossing a grape in the air.

I run forward and catch the small round fruit in my mouth.

"I am officially the master at this." I say, chewing my grape loudly, to show off.

We're not supposed to be goofing off like this on the job, but there's nothing else to do besides sit and watch sheep graze. We have to protect the herd of sheep in case a wild dog or mountain lion decides to attack the herd. I'm equipped with a spear while Kyan has a bow. I've been practicing with the spear for a while now. I used to help pick crops like most kids my age, but the managers recognized my talents and made me one of the only female sheep guards. I really like this job a lot better than my old one, especially now that I get to work with my best friend.

Our district is the agriculture district. It's District 11 out of currently 12 districts in Panem. There used to be a thirteenth district, but it got destroyed when it tried to rebel against our Capitol. I don't blame them for trying to do so. The Capitol of Panem is cruel and ruthless. If I could do something to rebel, I certainly would. But I'm one voice in thousands, the others, excluding Kyan, are too scared to do anything. They have good reason for fear. The law enforcements (Peacekeepers) will severely punish you for a lot of things, even merely talking about rebellion.

"What's that?" Kyan says suddenly, raising his bow.

"Very, funny." I remark. It's been a while since we actually had to kill something on the job. We get paid extra for every carcass, and both of our families need the money.

Kyan has one older brother named Baric, younger twin sisters named Jasmine and Jermanie, and only a father. I just live with my mother. My father died before I was born, so I have no other siblings.

"No, seriously." Kyan says.

I tighten my hands on the spear and watch the woods intently, ready to lunge at any sign of movement. Since the herds of sheep are placed outside of the district, wild animals can come at any time, but they usually don't because they know that we can kill them easily.

"There!" Kyan roars as a wild dog emerges from the woods.

Growling and emaciated the dog and another pounce towards us. Kyan releases and arrow that pierces one dog. The other plunges at me. I thrust my spear forward and through the dog. The animal is dead before it reaches me. I withdraw my spear and let the bloody mess of fur fall to the ground.

"Well, at least we've got dinner." Kyan remarks grimly.

We're not supposed to take anything from outside the district, especially hunted animals. Since we had to kill them though, the Peacekeepers at the sheep farm let us bring the animals home. We just have to be very careful about who knows about the kills.

"Do you think there's any more?" I ask.

"I don't know, usually they travel in larger packs." Kyan says.

I pause for a moment. It really is nice to have more kills; we need the money and the food. District 11 is a very poor district. Lots of families starve, that's part of the reason why they start kids at work at such a young age.

"I'm going to check the woods out." I say, raising my spear and creeping towards the trees.

"Be careful, Luce." Kyan says.

My real name is Lucilile. I really hate it when people pronounce it, Lucille. I always have to correct teachers by slowly articulating "Loo-ci-ly-uhl." I have to admit, my name is tricky to read, but once you get the hang of saying it, it rolls of your tongue easily. Kyan always likes to sing it, his voice soaring up and down between every syllable.

My feet hit the rough ground of the woods and my whole body goes tense. A person can be killed by a pack of wild dogs. I shiver when I think about what a mountain lion could do to me. I see a flash of brown to my left. I wheel around and ready my spear. Another flash of brown-gray sends my whirling the other way. Where are the dogs? Something hits my leg and I fall forward, hands first into a thorny tree.

"Lucy!" I hear Kyan scream.

Pain shoots through me, especially my left arm, which I used to protect myself. I roll off of the tree and land on the forest floor. I pick myself off the ground, ready to be pummeled by vicious animals. Nothing happens. My left arm throbs and I look over to see blood pouring out of it.

"Are you okay?" Kyan asks, rushing to my side.

"I'm fine." I reply as Kyan helps me up.

"You sure?" he asks. "You're really bleeding."

I glance at my arm. Kyan's right. I really must've cut my arm bad. There's a long, red slash that runs along my forearm. Blood is pouring out of it, making me want to vomit.

"Let's go back and clean that up." Kyan says.

We walk back to our usual positions. My arm doesn't cease to bleed. Kyan takes a chunk of gauze from our first aid kit and wraps my arm in it. After that's done, he wraps a bandage tightly around it.

"That should do." I say, looking at my bundled arm. It hurts a lot, but I've never been one to express my pain. Pain is vulnerability, vulnerability could be death.

"I sure hope so." Kyan says with a hint of worry. "Hey, you know, do you think we should go back to the base and get that checked out?"

"No, no, I'll last another two hours." I say.

It's Saturday and we work from nine in the morning to five at night. On school days, we work from five at night to seven.

"Don't be embarrassed, if you can't walk, I can carry you." Kyan says. It's true, with his muscles, he could carry me all the way back to the base.

"I can walk." I snap. "I just don't need to."

I wouldn't be worrying at all if Kyan wasn't so concerned. Kyan can sense my rising worry, he's been my best friend for ten years. We became friends when we were seven and just started out picking crops. Four years ago, when we were thirteen, we got promoted to this position of sheep guard. It's more interesting and pays a lot more than picking corn.

Kyan cleans the kills and divides the meat so the seven people we have to feed all get the same amount of food. As the hours pass by, both of us notice the blood seeping through my bandage.

"Are you okay?" Kyan asks tentatively.

"I already said, I'm fine." I say, not so sure this time. Why am I bleeding so much? The wound shouldn't have caused this much damage. I put on a straight face and try not to worry. Kyan sees through me, as always.

"Just ten more minutes, Lucy." He says soothingly.

I grit my teeth and nod. The pain is increasing, but bearable. The minutes go by more slowly than what seems possible. Finally, I see the next pair coming in to take over our shift.

"Let's go." Kyan says. He looks at me unsurely. "Are you sure you don't need help getting back?"

"It's my arm that's got a problem, not my leg." I force a laugh. Of course, the pretend joking doesn't fool Kyan. Why did I even try it on him when I know it's useless?

We walk back to the base. Walking thankfully doesn't hurt my arm anymore than the pain that currently stabs through it. I keep telling myself in my mind that this is temporary; pain is the body's reaction to things to tell you that it will be over.

"Let's get a little extra money." Kyan says with a grin as we approach the base building.

"Get anything?" The manager asks us.

"Two wild dogs." Kyan says, opening his backpack and laying the evidence on the table.

"Very good." The manager remarks. He hands us our bonus pay and we head on out.

"What is your mother going to say about that arm?" Kyan asks.

"She'll want to get it checked out." I say.

"Of course she will." Kyan says with a smile.

Ever since my father died, my mother has worried over every little thing. I've never known what she was like before my father died, I wonder if she'll ever be the same.

"Bye." I say to Kyan as we part ways.

"Bye." Kyan says, clearly wanting to say something more. Kyan lives two streets down from me, our houses aren't that far of a walk away from the sheep farm.

I take a deep breath as I go up to my house door. I savor this one moment of serenity before my mother will see my arm. I step into my house, bracing myself.

"Hey, honey, how was work?" my mom asks.

The sweet aroma of supper cooking wafts into my nose. My mouth waters. I really am hungry.

"Good." I reply. "We killed two wild dogs."

"Did you?" my mom says. "That's great!"

I walk into the kitchen and my mother spots my arm.

"Oh, Lucy!" she cries. "What happened?"

"I scratched my arm on a thorny tree." I say pathetically.

My mother stands in the kitchen, her jaw drooping.

"The blood-it's soaking through!" She exclaims.

"Time for a new bandage?" I say.

My mother abandons dinner and runs to the bathroom. She pulls out a first aid kit.

"In here, please." She says.

I have a choice. I either refuse to go to the bathroom and eventually lose to my mother and end up going, or I can go down easily. Reluctantly, I trudge to the bathroom.

"Okay, I'm going to be careful. Lay your arm out." my mother instructs.

I set my arm down on the counter and my mother gingerly peels the bandages off.

"You bleed this much from scraping a thorn?" my mother asks.

"I guess so!" I reply.

My mother pours water over my cut and dries it. Then, she adds a small amount of infection cream, though it isn't the best quality, it's better than nothing. Then, my mother wraps my arm back up. My mother looks at me with a concerned expression.

"What?" I say.

"It's just that..." she says, cutting herself off.

"It's just that what?" I ask.

"I don't know." My mother says, shaking her head and putting the first aid kit away.

Now I'm really worried.

"I'll be fine." I say. Who am I kidding? Both my mom and I are worried. "Just relax." I tell myself. "It's just a scrape."

I try to shake it off and go out to the kitchen to eat supper.

At night I toss and turn, coated with perspiration, unable to fall asleep. Barely awake, I mumble and roll over, hoping my mother doesn't notice. And hoping that it will be all better when the morning comes.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

I wake up, the sunlight filters into my room. My sheets are tossed around and there's some damp spots on my bed from sweat. My throat itches, but I dismiss that as a minor side effect of having a dry mouth. But I have an intuition that it's much more than that.

It's Sunday and my mother must still be asleep. I don't want to disturb her, because every waking moment for her is consumed in worry. I walk to the kitchen without waking my mother in the next room over. Maybe she's dreaming about my father whom I never met.

"Dang it." I say when I see the bandage that covers my left arm.

Stained red, the bandage barely clings on to my arm. Like me, it's had a rough night. I go to the bathroom to switch the bandages on my arm. Carefully, I peel the wrapping off my left arm, revealing a nasty surprise.

The red cut on my arm isn't bleeding, but puss is oozing out of the sides. The injury is coated with a waxy gloss, and the skin around the cut is inflamed.

I gasp and step backward, gaining no ground between myself and my arm.

I can't let anyone see this, anyone being both my mother and Kyan. Both of them will worry, and I don't want them to worry any more than they already do, with feeding a family and working all of the time.

I grab a new bandage to tie my arm in. Bandages cost money, so I feel guilty using them. I feel guilty using a lot of things that are hard to afford.

I pack myself a lunch and head out on the street where I usually meet Kyan. I wait there, noticing that I have a slight headache. It's probably just from anxiety, or a small infection in my arm.

"Lucy."

Somewhat surprised, I turn around only to face Kyan.

"Oh, hi." I say.

"You sound disappointed." Kyan says with raised eyebrows.

I turn red for no apparent reason.

"No, just relieved." I say. "You scared me at first."

"How's the arm?" Kyan asks, his eyes wandering to my bandaged left arm.

"Fine." I say.

We walk to the base and check in. My head is becoming increasingly painful. Kyan and I grab our weapons and head to our station. Minutes pass by and nothing exiting happens. As usual.

"Wait, it's Sunday. We have school tomorrow." I acknowledge. "Disgusting."

"At least we don't work as long." Kyan replies.

"Yeah, but I'd rather be working out here with you than in school." I say. Kyan is sadly one of my only close friends. I don't see him all that often in school.

"That is true." Kyan says. "Very true. But we only have one more year of school after this one, Luce."

I sigh. "You're right."

If we don't have school, then that's one less payment we have to make.

"It'd be nice if we got a few more wild dogs today." Kyan says. "The rest of the pack."

"It would be nice, but I doubt we will." I say.

Kyan smiles at me.

"Why are you always so negative?" he asks.

"I'm not _always _negative." I say, knowing Kyan's just being playful. Or is he? Am I always negative? Well, it's hard not to be when you live in this wretched country. I'm not very patriotic either. "Just sometimes."

"More like sometimes you're positive." Kyan says, leaning back against the fence post.

Now he's just trying to get on my nerves. Arguing doesn't help my throbbing head. Sweat lines my forehead.

"Lucilile? You okay?" Kyan asks me. There comes the usage of my full name, signaling worry from Kyan. Wow, we really have known each other for a long time.

I open my mouth, searching for a comeback, but the only thing that comes out is my breakfast.

"Gosh, I didn't think I was being that offensive." Kyan remarks, backing away from me as I wipe my mouth.

Then, he knows something's wrong.

"Lucy, you okay?" he asks.

"I'm fine." I manage, puking again.

My head pounds and my stomach twirls. What's happening?

"Lucy? Lucy?"

I fall to my knees and let out another spurt of upchuck.

"Look, I'm carrying you back." Kyan says, reaching down to me.

"No! No!" I scream. "It'll pass, it'll pass!"

I gasp for air between throwing up. Kyan throws me over his shoulder and walks back to the base.

"No!" No!" I cry, not aware of what I'm saying really.

My vision is blurry and I pound on Kyan's back. Sick, I'm no match for my best friend.

"What's the problem?" I hear the base manager say. We must be in the base.

"She's sick." Kyan says. "I need to take her to a doctor."

I have no strength to say anything. Much less, wipe the remains of puke that lines my mouth. Limp, I hang from Kyan's shoulder.

"You left the station unguarded?" the manager asks in a somewhat angry tone.  
"She's sick." Kyan repeats, his voice rising.

The manager pauses. "Very well, I'll get another rotation out there. However, you need to come back once you've got her at the doctor. If you're not back in an hour or so, bad things may happen."

"Thank you sir." Kyan says.

We're in motion again. Time passes, I'm unable to calculate how much. Finally, we get into a building and Kyan begins talking to somebody. I can't distinguish any words, and eventually, it all goes dark.

I wake up on an unfamiliar bed, my head buzzing. Where am I?

"Lucilile!" my mother cries from a chair next to me.

"What's happening?" I ask.

"You're in the doctor's office." my mother replies.

Memory comes back to me. The sweating. My head throbbing. Puking. Hanging over Kyan's shoulder as he rushed through town. Kyan!

"Where's Kyan?" I ask, sitting up.

"They made him go back to work." my mother tells me. "He didn't want to go, but he'd lose his job if he hadn't."

It's too unfair. Kyan, so bravely rushes to save me, carrying me for miles as I threw up along his back, may lose his job because of it. If anything, I'd lose my job before letting him lose his. Even though it's unfair for me to lose my job because I was sick. What was Kyan supposed to do? Sit there while I threw up and passed out?

"What's wrong with me?" I ask.

"They don't know." my mother replies. "They gave you a little bit of medication, but they're running tests to see what caused all of that."

My mother and I both look at my arm before exchanging glances.

"Do they know?" I ask.

"Yes, I told them all about your arm." My mother assures me.

"What time is it?" I ask.

I hope Kyan's shift is over soon so I can talk to him.

"Two thirty." my mother replies.

Two and a half hours before Kyan gets off work, unless they make him work extra.

A nurse bursts into the room with a clipboard.

"Lucilile Evans?" She asks.

"Yes." my mother says, standing up out of her seat..

"We figured out what's wrong." the nurse says grimly. "Please, sit down."

By the tone of her voice and the way she suggests that my mother sits down, I can tell this is going to be bad. More than anything, I want Kyan to be here too. I want my mother holding one of my hands and Kyan holding the other. But I have to pretend to stray away from my childish fantasies, and listen to the news.

"Lucilile had been poisoned." the nurse announces.

"Poisoned?" my mother and I say in unison.

Who could've spiked my food with poison? Who would want to do that? I'm not saying that everybody loves me, but I can't imagine why somebody would want me dead.

"You said that Lucilile scraped against a tree?" the nurse asks.

The tree, what does this have to do with poison? I want to know who poisoned me!

"Yes, yes I did." my mother says quickly.

"We suspect that tree was a very rare, very deadly species that we had no idea resided in this area. But the poison from that kind of tree is in Lucilile's blood, and started with the infection of her scrape, so we can conclude that that tree was what caused it." the nurse says.

I close my eyes and try to picture the thorny tree that I had run into. I don't recognize it. This is all headed downhill.

"You said it was deadly." my mother says shakily.

"Yes, untreated, it can kill a person." the nurse says. Crash! I just hit the bottom of the hill. But I could be at the summit of another one.

"What's the treatment?" my mother asks.

I quickly pray for a miracle. It's a possibility that this poison has no remedy, and if it does, we probably won't be able to afford it. I hold my breath, anticipating the worst.

The nurse sighs. That's not a good sign at all. Please, just get it over with!

"Unfortunately, the cure is as rare as the tree that causes the poison." the nurse says. "It's expensive too."

My heart drops. We can't afford anything expensive.

"How much?" my mother asks, her voice becoming brittle.

"I'll bring in a bill." the nurse says, leaving the room.

I look at my mother. I'm too worried to cry right now. She takes my hand and we say nothing. Partly, because we're too scared to make any assumptions, we just need to hope that some good news will come. It's also partly because a lump in my throat allows no words to escape me.

The nurse returns again with a clip board.

"These are the expenses." the nurse hands the clipboard to my mother. "You'll have to pay for the treatment, then hospitalization, and whatever else is needed."

My mother moans and clutches her heart when she looks at the clipboard, defeating all chances of hope that clung to life inside of me.

"Do-do we get any discounts? And charities?" My mother asks, her voice fighting to remain at merely a waver.

The nurse shakes her head.

"I don't think your district could raise this money, if they could, I don't think they would." she says.

It's not meant to be a slam to District 11's heartless people, it's just saying that most people here have to struggle for food, and any money escaping them would be superfluously generous.

"This is a lot of money for even the Capitol." the nurse says. "If there was anything I could do, I would do it. But the Capitol isn't going to let you take this free or at any discount. And if any charities were to be given out, it would be to a child more likely."

"But she's seventeen!" my mother cries. "She is a child!"

"She won't be by the time the medicine would come in." the nurse says solemnly.

My heart sinks. I'm doomed.

"How long?" I ask.

"Pardon me?" the nurse asks.

"How long do I have to live?" I choke out, my face becoming an indifferent mask.

The nurse's eyes shift uncomfortably.

"There is a plan I think you can afford, that will keep Lucilile alive for three to four months." the nurse says.

Three to four months! I can't take this, I really can't. I never thought it would be me, the one who's going to die from a sickness. I never expected this. What can I do in four months.

My mother is losing the battle in fighting back tears. I'm too shocked to cry.

"Will she be able to leave the hospital?" my mother asks.

I couldn't take spending four months in a hospital bed. I'd just want to die first.

"Up until the final few days." the nurse speaks as if I'm not in the room.

"How long will she go untreated at all?" my mother asks.

I don't even want to listen to this. Can somebody please take me out of this room?

"Just a few days." the nurse says.

No! I don't want to live only a few more days! I had a whole life ahead of me! Why did I have to go into those woods? Why did I chase after that wild dog? Because we're poor. And starving. And it's the fault of the Capitol. Everything bad leads back to the Capitol.

"Ms. Evans." the nurse says. "Why don't we take care of the billings outside in the lobby."

They want to leave me, and I'm fine with that.

"Okay." my mother says, her voice cracking.

Then, the nurse bends over me to give me a shot of something. I stiffen, but don't reject. When the nurse and my mother disappear from the room, so does my vision.

"Lucilie, you have a visitor." a new nurse is standing over my bed, talking to me.

I look around, letting my senses and the shocking news coming whirling back into memory. Surprisingly, I stay just morose and unreachable.

"Who?" I ask.

The nurse glances down at her clipboard.

"Kyan Greene." she says.

Oh, no!

"Did somebody tell him already?" I gasp.

"Yes, he is aware of everything, he's been waiting here for the past hour. Since six o'clock" the nurse informs me.

I moan.

"I needed to tell him!" I cry. "_I _needed to tell him!"

The nurse shifts her weight awkwardly.

"Perhaps a different time is better for visitors." she says.

"No!" I shout. "Bring him in!"

The nurse walks to the door and opens it. Kyan flies into the room, pale and wide eyed. He stops dead in front of my hospital bed.

"Lucy." Kyan says, almost inaudibly.

He sinks to his knees, burying his face in his hands, and lets out a sob.


End file.
